Howard Lindzon – StockTwits

Howard Lindzon is the co-founder and CEO of StockTwits, the community-powered idea and information service for investments. He’s a hedge fund manager and partner in two other funds called Knight’s Bridge Capital Partners, as well as a partner in Social Leverage, whose mission is to invest in, syndicate, and help grow web businesses.

Here are the notes.

Early Entrepreneur

in the early 70’s, at 10 years old, Howard traveled with his family to New Mexico and was fascinated by turquoise jewelry

his dad would buy him about $300 worth at $10/piece

Howard then sold them for $14/piece to his friends’ moms

The Grip (1st Business/Investment)

The Grip is a balloon-wrapped ball full of bird seeds that users squeeze to relieve tension

Howard was using The Grip and loved it so much that he cold-called the founder right out of college and wrote him a check for $25,000 dollars to become his partner

Howard’s Value To The Grip

Howard visualized many markets for The Grip

they then marketed The Grip by allowing other companies to put their name on the ball

during it’s peak The Grip sold about 40 million units

Howard was making so much money that he started toying with investing in stocks

Lindzon Capital Partners (2nd Business)

Lindzon Capital Partners was a hedge fund Howard started in ’98

initially when he started investing, in the 90’s, investing in stocks was easy for everyone

by year 2000 through 2004 he was investing in order to survive

so he turned to investing in private companies

Way/How Howard Invests

in order to invest, Howard has to use the product, love the product; then meet the people, love the people, and be passionate about where there vision is

Howard wants to invest in companies with the knowing that they can build a global brand without great financial backing

he invests in finished products, websites must be clear, concise and easy to understand

Rent.com

Rent.com was Howard’s first real investment hit

Howard’s hedge fund was one of the initial investors in Rent.com

in 2005 it was sold to eBay for $450 million

he realized the business concept for Rent.com, matching customers with inventory on the web, was the best way to make money

GolfNow

GolfNow was Howard’s next hit

it’s an online site where golfers can go to purchase tee time

it was just recently sold to Comcast

WallStrip

WallStrip was a 3 minute financial show viewing companies in a positive light

Howard felt that financial shows hadn’t advanced with the times, so he wanted to create a financial show meets SNL

he felt that if they could connect the right crowd and execute properly that there would be many exiting options from the company

StockTwits

StockTwits is a community-powered idea and information service for investments and investors

instead of investing in Twitter he wanted a community like Twitter based around stocks

he blogged about his idea and one of his readers commented and offered to build it

Howard accepted and now they are 50-50 partners

Advice

“Match-making businesses are the best; matching buyers and sellers and taking a fee for providing the exchange.”

“Make your own luck. You have to at least be in the game for good things to happen.”

“Smart entrepreneurs don’t make decisions based on greed, but because they want to win.”

“Leverage is only a tool, not a complete strategy.”

“If you choose to pick online fights, only fight with people who have more traffic, to get theirs.”

Side Notes

Howard was privileged and lucky as a kid; he didn’t have to work

his dad support his business ambitions as a child

The Grip is in the QVC Hall Of Fame

Howard created WallStrips to prove to the other advisors of GolfNow that incorporating social networking around your product could helps its growth

he doesn’t want to invent anything new or innovative, he just wants to invest in them early

Fred Wilson invited him to invest in Twitter when the valuation was only $20 million, but Howard turned it down

he chooses to take less equity for more speed

Howard is personally friends with Timothy Sykes but doesn’t allow him on StockTwits because he doesn’t approve of his online personality